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The "information superhighway" analogy isn't perfect, but I think it is close enough to correct to be a useful analogy while being familiar enough for laymen to understand.

You can think of the Internet like our system of roads. There are major interstate highways; these are the backbone of the Internet, with many lanes of bandwidth. Smaller highways connect to the major interstates; these are run by your ISPs. Even smaller roads lead from those smaller highways to your home. When you send an email or type t

Google would give them the finger and just continue rolling out Google Fiber. If people can't get their YouTube through Comcast, then Comcast is going to lose a lot of customers.

Google has no interest in rolling out fiber across the country, or even in just the major cities. They don't have the money or the political influence to become a major telco. They simply want more people to use more of their bandwidth-intensive services, and they're using their small fiber operations and this "report card" shit to pressure telcos into upgrading their networks and reducing their costs (both to the end user and to Google).

The whole point of Google Fiber was to scare Comcast, etc into doing better. It's growing because the incumbents haven't changed their practices outside of those markets. They're still hoping to scare them by taking some big markets, and threatening bigger markets.

Regardless, even if Google went full-speed ahead, it would take a long time to roll out to most major markets.

Then we will move on to something else, but meanwhile we will have improved significantly over Comcast. Same thing happened 10 years ago when the cell phone companies ate the land-line companies' lunch. Now cell service providers suck, but we're still way better off than we were.

Each network pays for half of the costs of transferring the bits. The ISP charges its customers for its half. The data source pays part of its half to the customer's network because they do more than half the work.

Businesses like Netflix and YouTube necessarily emit large amounts of information from a small number of sources to a large number of destinations. This is always going to be much cheaper than delivering traffic to a very large number of destinations, like ISPs have to do. We assume the traffic be

You are imagining some hypothetical Internet that is nothing like the Internet we actually have. You are correct that ISP's have to deliver data to their customers. But only from sources that do their fair share of the work. If I place a computer in Antarctica, Comcast doesn't have to run a line to Antarctica at no charge to me just because one of their customers wants to reach that machine.

The Internet we actually have grew organically by organizations each doing their part to interconnect with others for

Perhaps you're imagining some alternate universe with an alternate Internet that works some other way. But in this world, for decades, settlement-based peering has been used when costs fall unequally on the parties.

Are you arguing that everyone should be able to run a line to the nearest IXP, pay only that IXP, and have Internet access to everyone and everything? Are you aware of the many, many reasons that can't possibly work? Who would pay to carry traffic across the Atlantic?

"Connecting directly to the destination network is typically free... you may not get access to another network's entire network."

Exactly. When the costs naturally split fairly evenly, there's no reason for anyone to pay anyone else. If both networks do their fair share, and we presume the traffic benefits both parties roughly equally, there's no reason for anyone to pay anyone else. Any argument that X should pay Y equally argues that Y should pay X. Senders pay to send, recipients pay to receive. This is

That's stupid and inefficient. Why should I pay X to pay Y when I can just pay Y directly?

That's actually what Netflix used to do, paying Level3 to reach Comcast. This was awful for everyone. Netflix paid more than they needed to. Comcast's customers had to go over Level3's network to reach Netflix. Level3's peering to Comcast was overloaded. And Level3 and Comcast had to deal with the lopsided data flow that was Netflix's fault. The solution was obvious and simple -- Netflix should just pay Comcast directl

And yet, the some net non-neutrality supporters complain that it was unfair for Netflix to put all their content on the net for free and leave the cost to all the poor Comcast users. That was seriously their analogy, despite the fact that Comcast only had the problem because of customers who paid Comcast for the ability to get Netflix, and the fact that Netflix pays its own ISP. But they sure do a good job making the big monopoly company seem like the poor abused little guy.

It has been the norm on the Internet for decades to use settlement-based peering when the costs fall unequally on the parties. It is much cheaper for Netflix to generate high-volumes of traffic from a small number of sources placed specifically where the costs are lowest than it is for Comcast to deliver high-volumes of traffic to a large number of sources placed in their customers' homes. The argument that it's fair for Comcast's customers to pay muc

Then that argument should be made. Probably the whole net neutrality arguments are being oversimplified in a way to present it to the public.

Personally, I think people who use more bandwidth should be charged more, and conversely the light users should be charged less. Of course, this does NOT mean replacing that $100/mo cable bill that was cancelled with a $120/mo internet bill. But imagine $20/mo for the DSL level broadband making it very affordable for the person who only checks mail and visits a few

First, what gives with the goofy webpages that try to scroll like pages of a book? One of the wonderful things about a web page is for it to be long and easy to scroll through, instead of requiring me to scroll in order to get to the next text section. That makes it really awkward to go back and forth.

Second, where can I search for other people's results? I want to switch to RCN in Boston, how does this webpage help me know how they're doing?

I imagine you would click on the "Compare providers in your area" button. I click that and it shows that AT&T DSL in my area is almost as good as Comcast cable (which is ridiculous and just goes to show how little bandwidth youtube actually needs).

'Designers' have never liked the web and love to break it - this is the result.

...says the dickhead who deliberately abuses this site's "code" post format option that he knows wraps his post in <tt> tags. I want to allow other, responsible posters to post their code snippets using the code format and have those code snippets render in monospace font while de-douchebagging Arker's format abuse.

How about giving us our HD streams over HTTP instead of DASH. Then maybe it wouldn't buffer every time we tried to do a seek. It's sucked balls since October 2013 when you turned all the MP4 HTTP streams (type 37) into DASH video (137) and audio (140). And yeah, we haven't forgotten that you nuked all the >128kbps M4A audio in 141 too, limiting us to 128kbps.

And every one of those problems is on Google's end, not the ISP's end.

And as long as I'm pipe dreaming here, can we please shoot the UXtard resp

There is a plugin for firefox (no idea why it needs a plugin, but whatever) that allows you to access the "hidden" youtube settings. One of these settings allows you to disable dash entirely. There are also settings to disable auto-quality, and to set a default quality level.

Streaming quality is inversely related to video consumption. For example, at 2am when hardly anybody is online, you can get great streaming quality. I agree that it's confusing, since it should really be "Video consumption and streaming quality problem/contention level" or something.

of the two major providers in my area, Time Warner is actually better (for youtube video quality) which i found rather shocking. That having been said, they do suck on a number of other levels.

1. things like recursing your own DNS with unbound or other software will get you added to their redirector for "unwanted/malicious traffic." basically, you're robbing them of SRVFAIL ad revenue and they dont like it. Encrypting lots of traffic or using encrypted IRC also seems to trigger this shit, which is easily circumvented by not using their DNS.2. signup isn't mandatory if you handle your own DNS, but again if you dont then expect to never get to the internet. Signing up means downloading their software, creating an email address, agreeing (again) to the ToS despite signing it on installation. you also get to opt into their advertising.3. two words: bulk mail. You'll get at least 3 or 4 letters a month reminding you to upgrade to the bundle or a higher data rate. higher data rates arent required when you null-route advertising servers and use noscript/adblock.

There's something fishy with these results. The Google report rates the connection from my small, local ISP at "Standard Definition", and then when I compare providers in my area apparently Comcast is "HD Verified". This just doesn't add up.

The problem with this is that I have available, and pay for, fiber broadband advertised at 90mbps, and speedtest.net concludes that I am getting what I pay for (92 up/35 down). I have a Roku or other streaming media player in every room and it's not unusual to have multiple HD movies streaming at the same time in different rooms, in addition to tablets, xbox, and other internet activity.

So I have to conclude that either Google isn't testing my actual connection as it appears to and is instead showing an average from my ISP, or the results are fixed and the big, shitty cable companies have "sponsored" their own "HD Verified" results. The latter seems more likely, I've had Comcast internet in this area before fiber became available and it doesn't compare, and even the cheapest packages at my ISP are pretty quick.

I'm not saying I think they know it now, or are intentionally moving in this direction, but consider the market forces involved: Is this, Netflix's similar effort, and ISP throttling, ultimately just foreplay to getting in bed together? They have the potential to really harm each other, and that has to get through to them eventually.

Seems to me, barring common carrier or another path to true net neutrality, both sides have more to gain by colluding than by fighting. If big content and big ISPs work together, they could create a barrier to independent ISPs and content.

They are forcing ISPs to uphold their end of their deal with the customer, which is the good part.However, the ISPs will probably improve service speed for _only_ Youtube as a result.This creates a barrier to other video services.

Seems to me, barring common carrier or another path to true net neutrality, both sides have more to gain by colluding than by fighting.

No, the ISPs have a lot to gain by blocking video traffic. They make tons of money on their television services and paid video-on-demand services. Every second that you're watching Hulu, YouTube, or Netflix is a second that you're not watching their paid services. They're terrified that their customer might find that they can get most of their entertainment from online s

They make tons of money on their television services and paid video-on-demand services. Every second that you're watching Hulu, YouTube, or Netflix is a second that you're not watching their paid services.

I watch YouTube because none of the major channels happen to show the subject matter in which I'm interested. So how should the fans of a particular web show go about getting that show added to "their paid services"?

Trying to click "your results" just gives me a popup saying "Results from your location are not available".It doesn't tell me what my "location" is, and it doesn't give me any option to change the location (since the "change location" link is on the results page that it refuses to show me)

If the location auto detect fails, it should give the user an option to manually set the location (or browse other locations), instead of just refusing to give any results whatsoever.

They are essentially combining people who pay for minimal service with those who pay for top service. That doesn't work. I have no problem getting HD quality content at any time of the day from my ADSL provider. That same provider is ranked poor simply because the company offers a less service at a much lesser price (significantly less than competing cable internet providers).

What I'm getting at is that it's not the ISP which is providing poor service in the case of 1.5mbps ADSL. If you notice in my case th

The vertical scale in the charts has no indices or any indication of what is measured. I see the statement to the right "Daily video activity is averagedover 30 days.", but it does not say what is really averaged. Is this MB/sec, percentage of available bandwidth, or what?

In any case, the throughput of a broadband connection is not the only issue in moving large amounts of bytes. I am having a problem with software for an HP printer. Today, HP advised me to download the entire software package for that printer, approximately 1.4 GB. However, HP's server could not deliver event 300 KB/sec into my 15 MB/sec broadband connection. There are servers delivering video that cannot keep up with playback speeds.

When I cannot get downloads a MB/sec rates, I generally blame the server at the other end and not my broadband provider. After all, I can immediately try a different download from a different source, and get my full 15 MB/sec.

When I cannot get downloads a MB/sec rates, I generally blame the server at the other end and not my broadband provider.

When the server at the other end is YouTube, it's not the server at the other end. Google has enormous capacity, both computing and bandwidth, and is extensively peered. But people do tend to blame the server, which is why Google is trying to make clear that it's not YouTube that's sucking when you have problems watching videos.

I'd say it's actually a little more complex than that. It depends not just on the source server but on every point between the source server and your machine. In the case of the Netflix/Comcast spat a while ago, for example, the problem wasn't Comcast's network, or Netflix, or the network between them, but Comcast's connection to the network between them -- so it was Comcast's fault, but not in a way that would show up with connections to other servers that took a different path.

And regardless of whether or not *you* blame YouTube when it's slow, many users do, which is why Google is doing this.

In any case, the throughput of a broadband connection is not the only issue in moving large amounts of bytes. I am having a problem with software for an HP printer. Today, HP advised me to download the entire software package for that printer, approximately 1.4 GB. However, HP's server could not deliver event 300 KB/sec into my 15 MB/sec broadband connection. There are servers delivering video that cannot keep up with playback speeds.

Googles page very nicely explains that. They go through an elaborate if dumbed-down "tube" analogy to explain that poor throughput could be anywhere between and including your computer and their servers. Obviously, the implication is that it's the interface between their own very fast network and your (nominally) very fast connection, but you do have to take on faith that their network is very fast.

When I cannot get downloads a MB/sec rates, I generally blame the server at the other end and not my broadband provider. After all, I can immediately try a different download from a different source, and get my full 15 MB/sec.

That's exactly what your provider would like you to believe. It's why many of them will prioritize speedtes

It doesn't take in to account the net speeds that people have. So you might well have a provider who has no problem doing HD video from Youtube all day every day, on lines that can handle it. However they sell slower lines and some customers have that, so that skews things.

Like say a phone company offers ADSL and IDSL for customers who are way out in the boonies, but VDSL for people in the city. Well those slow connections will bring down their stats, even if their network is quite fast and makes them look

If a user's Internet service can't maintain a given bitrate, how can Google tell whether this is caused by ISP malfeasance or simply by the user choosing to subscribe to a less expensive tier of home Internet service? As it is, it appears to punish ISPs for offering less expensive tiers with slower speeds, such as the low-speed tier that Comcast offers to families with children that receive assistance under the National School Lunch Program [wikipedia.org].

The results aggregate data for all users of each provider. In Australia at least, many providers offer different types of access (e.g. cable, DSL, 4G wireless), making some of the results less than meaningful.